Buddhist Psychotherapy and Buddhist Counseling describes an attempt to apply the teachings of the Buddha in a very specific way – for the alleviation of suffering, and by this we mean the emotional pain that we experience as anxiety, depression, stress, grief, loss, disappointment and frustration, anger, and the general existential suffering of not knowing who we are and what our place is within our society.

The struggle to find emotional meaning and balance in the midst of the challenges and stress of life and the seeming chaos of the life process is something we all have in common. There is no simple way through this chaos, but the Buddha presented some extraordinary teachings that are just as relevant today as they were 2600 years ago. In fact, these ancient teachings seem to be even more relevant today given the seriousness of our condition, both at the psychological and spiritual levels.

Talk to a Buddhist psychologist online

Please email me if you are interested in talking to a Buddhist mindfulness-based psychologist online through Skype. Mindfulness therapy is particularly good for treating anxiety and depression and is generally a great improvement over symptomatic treatments and medications. I have also used it with great success for helping people recover from PTSD and traumatic memories, especially using the image re-processing aspect of mindfulness therapy as I teach it.

Email me to schedule a Skype therapy session.

I will be very happy to answer your questions about therapy via Skype, and when you are ready, you can schedule a Skype therapy session with me.

Standard counseling can be helpful, but often it does not transform the underlying structure that is the real cause of your depression or anxiety.

The same can be said for medications – the medication may relieve symptoms for a while, but medications will not are not effective for transforming the underlying cause that produces the emotional suffering.

The type of psychotherapy that I provide is known as Mindfulness Therapy, which can be extremely powerful for handling chronic anxiety as well as for treating depression and other common psychological difficulties resulting from habitual reactive thinking. Most of my clients notice quite significant changes after the first couple of sessions of Mindfulness Therapy.

Welcome. My name is Peter Strong and I am a mindfulness-based psychotherapist, living in Boulder, Colorado, and I provide Skype Therapy for the treatment of anxiety and for help with recovery from chronic depression and also for help with addiction recovery.

If you would like to talk to a psychologist online who specializes in mindfulness therapy then please simply go to my website and send me an email and ask any questions you have about mindfulness therapy and this approach and how it can help you with your specific needs.

Generally, online therapy is very effective indeed, especially for anxiety and non-clinical depression. It is a much better alternative than years of talk therapy or other treatment-based options because Mindfulness Therapy teaches you specifically how to change your emotional reactions.

All emotional reactions are basically habits and all habits can be changed when you bring more consciousness to them. So, when you apply mindfulness to an emotional habit like anxiety or depression it changes, and it makes it much more effective in what you do in trying to help that anxiety or depression resolve and heal.

Basically, the most important thing is to build a mindfulness-based relationship with your emotions, based on consciousness and compassion. These two qualities are what really characterize mindfulness; it’s much more than just awareness. Most people are already aware of their emotional suffering, but they are not necessarily conscious of the emotional habit, the underlying process that creates their anxiety or depression.

This consists of habitual reactive thinking and habitual reactive behaviors and also habitual reactive imagery. One of the hallmarks of Mindfulness Therapy is examining the imagery of your emotions, what makes them work. And, of course, when you uncover that emotional imagery you have something very definite to work with, and when you change emotional imagery, you change the emotion.

If you would like to learn more about Mindfulness Therapy and you would like to talk to a psychologist online who specializes in Buddhist psychology and the mindfulness approach, then please go to my website and then send me an email and we can schedule a Skype therapy session at a time that works for you.

It doesn’t matter where you live, as long as you have an internet connection, we can arrange a Skype therapy session. So, please contact me. Thank you.

Skype Therapy Service – Online Therapy Service – Talk with a Therapist online over Skype for effective online mindfulness therapy for Depression and Anxiety, Social Anxiety and Agoraphobia, Addictions, and other emotional problems, including PTSD.

Email me to find out more about this online therapy service and to schedule a Skype therapy session with me.

This online counseling therapy service is available throughout the USA, UK and Western Europe and world-wide. All you need is a good internet connection and you are ready to start online therapy.

In my book, The Path of Mindfulness Meditation, I attempt to describe the principles of Buddhist Psychology in a nonsectarian way – and it is important to realize that Buddhism is not strictly a religion, but a philosophy, and more specifically, an inquiry into life, suffering and the path to the resolution of suffering. You do not have to be a Buddhist to practice the teachings of the Buddha, called the Dharma, but you do have to be willing to inquire with an open mind and heart into everything. This is why I called my book The Path of Mindfulness Meditation, and I frequently remind my students and clients (same thing) that meditation must always begin with the question, “What is mindfulness and what is mindfulness meditation?” The moment you think you know the answer is when you have fallen off the path.

“The Path of Mindfulness Meditation is an impressive piece of work. Peter Strong takes you through what is normally a very complicated journey, shrouded in mystery and religious overtones, to the heart of Buddha’s teachings in a way that is totally accessible and applicable to everyone’s problems and suffering. It is this clarity that has enabled me to apply the teachings to my own problems – with surprisingly rapid results.” – Caroline

An Exploration into Mindfulness – A Path to Transformation

Mindfulness is often described as the heart of the teachings of the Buddha, the work-horse of spiritual practice from a Buddhist perspective. Buddhist Psychotherapy is really about the application of mindfulness in daily life, in meditation and for working with emotional suffering and conflict. I use Buddhist Psychotherapy and Mindfulness Therapy interchangeably for this reason.

Mindfulness is the Art of Relationship

From the beginning, our direction and our path, is one of overcoming our habit of reacting to everything based on conditioning and unawareness (avijja or ignorance in Pali, the language of the ancient sutras). Our mission is to develop a relationship with everything that we experience based on open, receptive and non-reactive awareness – mindfulness. In our relationships, mindfulness can mean the difference between the fulfillment of love or the destruction of our relationship through conflict, aggression and emotional abuse. The outward expression of this aggression in our society is only too evident. Lack of mindfulness and that quality of caring that naturally accompanies mindfulness is a major factor in the drama of human suffering at all levels.

When we come to our emotions, the absence of mindfulness leads to denial, avoidance, suppression and resistance. We want to “fix” our “problems” and to get rid of our pain, our anxiety, our depression and stress. To suggest that we actually need to build and cultivate a relationship with our negative emotions based on opening our awareness and our hearts is quite a foreign idea to many. Yet, we all know at some level that aggression solves nothing, except to perpetuate suffering. All religions teach us the power of love and compassion – called metta in Pali. Some of the time, we understand this enough to practice cultivating love or friendliness in relationship to our children, our partner and even our colleagues in the work place, but do we exercise love and friendliness toward ourself, toward our pain and those painful emotions that are so problematic? The answer is, NO! We do not, and herein lies the problem of our emotional suffering – and the answer to the problem.

We need to cultivate a relationship with our inner suffering – the anger, the grief, the frustration, the sadness – whatever it is, that is based on mindfulness and metta, true compassionate friendliness. We, in fact, need to attend to our emotional suffering in the same way that we would attend to a child, or a baby – with patience, kindness, awareness, compassion and all the qualities that we associate with love, the highest human virtue that we carry within our hearts, but seldom exercise where it is truly needed.

Mindfulness is the process of developing awareness and love toward all aspects of our experience – suffering included – and there is nothing that needs our attention and metta more than our own inner suffering. If you don’t take care of that inner emotional pain, it will undermine every aspect of your life, relationships, family and work. So, the first rule of Buddhist Psychotherapy is to learn how to embrace our suffering, and the suffering of others, but in a skillful way that does not lead to us being overwhelmed by our anxiety or anger. This is the Art of Relationship that is the Path of Mindfulness.

Be Your Own Therapist

One of the principle teachings in Mindfulness Therapy is to teach you how to work positively with your emotions and to develop a healing relationship with emotional suffering based on wisdom and compassion, You might enjoy this video by a Tibetan Buddhist nun from Australia, the Ven. Robina Coutin. It is full of insights and describes the essence of the Buddha’s teachings very well, without the religious trappings. Definitely worth watching!

If you would like to schedule a session of Buddhist Mindfulness-based Therapy or Counseling with Buddhist Therapist, Dr. Peter Strong, please email me. Ask any questions you may have.

CONTACT ME TODAY

Learn more about Mindfulness Therapy and how you can apply Mindfulness-based Buddhist Psychotherapy to heal and transform your anxiety, panic attacks, depression and emotional stress.

Peter Strong, PhD is a Professional Psychotherapist, Online Therapist, Spiritual Teacher and Author, based in Boulder, Colorado. Peter developed a system of psychotherapy called Mindfulness Therapy for healing the root cause of Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Depression, Traumatic Stress and Emotional Suffering.